Kevin Costner gets honest about Whitney Houston loss

Away from the public eye, Kevin Costner and his The Bodyguard co-star Whitney Houston shared a close bond, so at the latter’s funeral, the Yellowstone star aired his regrets of letting her down.

“I let her down. I should have been there, and I wasn’t,” he said in a public statement. “And now for the rest of my life, I will have to live with that pain. I saved her then; I should have saved her now.”

“She was my one true love. I still have ‘I Will Always Love You’ as my ringtone, and I count it a badge of honor every time I get mocked for it,” the actor added.

His love for the late actress was on clear display when he took to the stage and gave an eulogy to her in front of the mourners.

“You weren’t just pretty — you were as beautiful as a woman could be. And people didn’t just like you, Whitney — they loved you,” the Academy-winning star said when Whitney passed away in 2012.

He continued, “I was your pretend bodyguard once, not so long ago, and now you’re gone too soon, leaving us with memories of a little girl who stepped bravely in front of this church, in front of the ones that loved you first, in front of the ones that loved you best and loved you the longest.”

Similarly, Kevin, in an interview on the Armchair Expert podcast, said that he made a promise to Whitney to protect her when she made her acting debut.

“I started to guide her,” he shared in 2024. “And I wasn’t trying to usurp my director [Mick Jackson], but I had made a promise to her, not to ****** him. I had promised Whitney she’d be good in it. That was my promise to her: she’s always gonna love me in the song.”

Whitney, who died from accidental drowning, also had heart disease and drug use as contributing factors. She was 48.